The Laws of Physics Are Dead
by HayashiOkami
Summary: ...and the FBI has connections to the Mafia? A child's dead body comes back to life. The unsub knocks on the door…but he's dead? And how do hats fit into the equation? What's going on here!
1. Laws of Physics I

_**The Laws of Physics Are Dead and**_

…_and the FBI has connections to the Mafia?_

_A child's dead body comes back to life._

_The unsub knocks on the door…but he's dead?_

_And how do hats fit into the equation?_

"You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone." (Al Capone)

_**I. In which a man misplaces his child.**_

The smiling man had calmly walked up to the front desk to declare his young ward missing, most certainly kidnapped, and by the serial killer the Behavioral Analysis Unit was in the middle of investigating no less. Naturally, they had no choice but to detain the man and submit him to questioning, given his overly lackadaisical disposition. The smile, an unsettlingly amiable one, accompanied almost every sentence he spoke. His voice never fluctuated while under hard pressure tactics of interrogation.

"I'm awfully worried about him, I'm sure you can understand that." The man with the salt-and-pepper hair interrogating him did not quite comprehend what type of worry the smiling man was trying to communicate. With that attitude, he seemed as if the entire ordeal was a simple matter of misplaced keys.

"You…'misplaced' your child." David Rossi repeated his earlier words dubiously. Indeed, his words had very little of his usual sting because this was an undeniably strange situation. He had his doubts as to whether this child existed or if this man was not mentally deranged. He spoke intelligently enough, but as their resident genius might announce, so did Ted Bundy and many other notorious serial killers. This could even have been a diversion tactic staged by the real unsub.

"'Misplaced' might actually be an unfitting word," the man pondered, as if just realizing the implications. He still appeared more amused than concerned. "He has a tendency to wander. I wondered why he hadn't returned for a while, and I was quite sure that I had left him in the library. He can stay there for hours. As for how do I know that _this_ particular man might have…kidnapped him? Well, all I can say is that I have a feeling."

"And how old is this boy? And what's his name? Why are you his guardian?"

"He's about ten years old. His name is Czeslaw Meyer. I'm simply taking care of him for his older sister's sake. Their parents died when they were young. I'm a close friend of her husband's. We thought it might do him good to see the world."

_At ten years old?_ That was the question Rossi wanted to answer the man with, but he supposed it might not lead him anywhere except in stranger circles. Instead, he felt obligated to ask more routine questions like: "Where does his family live and how can we contact them? What makes you think that he was taken by the serial killer on the news? Did anything seem strange about your surroundings or the people around you when you last saw him? Where did you go after that?"

His family lived in New York. He wasn't the type of boy that would disappear for that long without dropping some hint of his next destination. Everything was quite normal in the library. He was doing research in a different part of the library and went outside to another store across the street, and time caught up with him and before he knew it he was six blocks away and half a day had flown by.

"It _has_ to be that serial killer, because logically, there is no other option," the amiable man offered, as if this simple logic was the truth of the universe. The FBI agent sighed and tapped his finger against the table.

"Alright, please state your name again for the record and the name of the boy's sister as well," he intoned. At least he would receive a decent answer for that.

The man complied, "Maiza Avaro. His older sister is Ennis. She lives with her husband Firo Prochainezo, an old friend of mine."

"We're trying our best, Mr. Avaro. Can you tell me if there's anyone who has a grudge against you or the boy's family?" Actually, the FBI agent silently resigned himself to a rather negative answer. The victims had no enemies and little correlation besides being children, primarily young boys.

The strange man had to pause and consider the question for a moment, unusual given his quick answers. Still, his behavior revealed little. "Well, yes, there are quite a few people who Firo and I left off on bad terms with. But we have equally good allies, so it has never been a major problem. Perhaps, they aren't even aware of the boy's existence. We've been moving around a lot, with no particular destination."

"And these people you left off on bad terms with are…?" Rossi wasn't sure if he wanted an answer from the man anymore, honestly. How was it that this veteran agent, who had contended with the most deranged of criminals, had reached his wit's end so quickly?

_**II. The mister with the teddy bear is not attractive.**_

A library held a good many books, more than any one human could possibly read in his or her entire lifetime. The little boy sitting on a stepstool in a corner had a stack of just a few of these books by his side. The corner was nothing like a timeout corner, neither dark nor inhabited by strange creatures. The corners of the children's section of the bookstore were framed by colorful books dipped in pastels and vibrant colors, decorated with specific themes and rather unlike a normal bookstore.

The boy's small hand flipped to the next page as his eyes traced across the words, but he was not reading much of the book. By his young age in life he had already read a huge amount of the books in the store. Well, the ones that any regular bookstore had, at least. Colorful children's books were of little interested to him, except that they were much nicer than the dark books on the shelf just on the other side. And sometimes children's books could stir up bad memories, too.

_And the lumberjack cut open the wolf's stomach to save Little Red Riding Hood._ Fairytales went like that, and children were always quite blissfully unaware of the implications.

No matter; the little boy was not in the children's section of the store to read children's books. People didn't poke and prod him here, asking why he was reading such difficult books or whether or not he actually understood a word on the page. In short, no one really noticed him or paid him attention. No one noticed that he had been back to this bookstore (and this corner in particular) for a little under a week now.

It was because just behind this corner, a corner formed by one wall and a bookshelf, were the adult books, enabling him to hear conversations from both sections. Mothers tended to sit on the very low benches and chat with each other as their kids played or selected books. Only a few had bothered to ask in sweet undertones, "Where's your mother?"

"Uncle said he'd come back to get me soon," was his own sweet reply, with a smile, too. Women loved little children's smiles. In this manner he was able to rest peacefully in the corner and listen to whichever conversation he wanted to hear.

He was listening for gossip about that serial killer. It was always hard to hear the women speak in low voices about it, but he managed. The FBI recently got involved in the case, so perhaps the reign of terror would end soon, the mothers hoped. It was only natural. The criminal targeted young children – a few girls in the beginning, and he continued on a trend for boys. He – the FBI seemed convinced it was a "he" – killed them and deposited the bodies after a few days. They were all right around his age, so that was probably why they had asked after his mother.

Not that he had a mother anymore, nor was he very afraid.

It was the sixth day of waiting around the store for his "Uncle" when it happened. At first, he saw a teddy bear. It was the same type that was being sold on the display tables out front, a replica of some character from a children's book. Maybe that book was even in the pile that he was circling through today. In any case, it was a teddy bear with soft light brown fur and a pastel blue bow around its neck.

"Why are you here all alone?" the man asked. The little boy blinked as he stared up at the man, a normal young guy with a teddy bear in his hand. "Where's your mother?"

"Uncle said he'd come back to get me soon. I'm going to meet him outside later." He glanced back down at the teddy bear. "I'll be fine, mister." He made sure to grin.

The young man, a nondescript young man, the type anyone might see on a street somewhere and never pay any heed, looked at the teddy bear dejectedly and placed it aside. He flashed the boy a smile, but it wasn't as good or complete.

"It isn't good to be alone nowadays, is it? I kind of worry about my little brother sometimes; he's your age and he hates things like this," said the young man, pointing to the bear. "He's very…independent; he likes being off on his own, doing his own thing."

The boy nodded attentively, seeming to have lost interest in the book, while he had never been interested in the first place. "Uncle's busy, so I have to go and do my own thing. I don't want to sit in the hotel all day and be bored."

Of course, children were very selfish. The young man laughed, as if remembering his own brother. The little boy blinked, as if he was unable to understand why the man was laughing.

"Hey mister, can you get me something?"

_**III. The nicest Mafia member in the world makes a bargain.**_

Emily Prentiss knew many things that were unsafe to know, things that were detrimental to a person's health and life, and things the public at large probably should never have to imagine. Within the FBI were innumerable amounts of people she had never heard of and most likely would never hear of in her entire life. This was a plain fact that no one really acknowledged except under these circumstances.

"Maybe I can jail you for a long time under 'child endangerment', how does that sound? Of course, that won't be counting all the other crimes you Mafia members are responsible for, but it's a start." The man speaking was an FBI agent as well, a man named Victor Talbot who was apparently acquainted with Maiza Avaro. Even in the face of this threat, the suspicious stranger remained smiling. It was difficult to read him, in all honesty.

"I would appreciate it if we find him first, and then deal with those complications afterwards. But there's actually something I want to talk to you about pertaining to this. I wouldn't have bothered coming here otherwise."

_There,_ Emily thought. In one brief moment the man's smiling countenance had switched from amused to serious. It was a deep, cold seriousness that chilled her bones. Yes, there were many layers to the person known as Maiza Avaro, so many intricate layers that were perhaps impossible to see through unless he allowed them access. At first, he had seemed eerily suspicious, but there were far more facets to him than that.

"Is it alright for them to know?" Avaro asked, "Since I'm sure that the man behind this is an immortal. Czes and I have been searching for the rest of those like us for some years now. Although I dread saying it, I don't think that we are far off the trail. He is most likely the same as us. Otherwise, he should have found a way to return by now, another reason why I waited before coming here."

Talbot narrowed his eyes and considered the team, glancing just once at the board where the evidence had been lined up. He gave a sharp nod and turned to address them before the weight of Avaro's words had caught up with them.

"I suppose it is prudent that I tell you the truth, if what he says is true."

"You mean that _he_," Morgan pointed at Avaro, "is in the Mafia? That might have been good to know before."

"Not the Mafia," Avaro supplied, his voice somewhat uplifted again, "I'm part of the Camorra."

"And there's a difference…?"

It was amusing how they automatically started to turn towards Reid before he was able to begin explaining. It was also somewhat sad. "Well, the Camorra _is_ an organization that deals with organized crime, originating in Naples, Italy. It's actually reputed to be more violent than the sect we commonly think of when referring to the Mafia. But in America, most of their power has melded into that of the other Italian Mafias, so it's actually surprising to hear that someone claims to be from that sect."

Another smile, "I'm glad you know of us."

_**IV. A child's dead body comes back to life.**_

A distinctive part of this unsub's MO was the videos he recorded of the children's deaths, which accompanied the corpse when an unsuspecting pedestrian stumbled over it (sometimes literally). The footage was a shocking snuff film depicting whatever horrendous torture this unsub decided to bestow upon that particular victim, and the FBI had quickly learnt to ban the parents from seeing it.

This time, the video actually appeared in the mailroom, addressed to the FBI. It puzzled them that the criminal would break his MO and deliver the package without the body. There was no choice but to watch the horrifying footage in full. At this point in time, the agents had already spoken with Maiza Avaro, the eccentrically normal man who claimed to have "misplaced" his ward. It seemed that Garcia was actually having trouble finding those two people on file, so they had no idea what they were getting into.

This was just a day full of strange, abnormal things, and it wasn't even over yet. Before the day was out the tides of fate had much more to entertain the agents with. For now, it was this video. The sound quality was amazingly clear for a homemade film, if it could even be called such.

"_Mister, what's going on? Why are you doing this?" asked the child's voice, a young boy, perhaps no older than ten years old. The room was surprisingly well-lit; the walls were an impersonal grey and the floor clearly splotched with dark patches of what could only be blood. The boy was on the ground, hands bound behind his back, legs splayed in an uncomfortable position. His dark hair was neatly arranged on his head, skin pale, and his clothes were also rather dark for a child his age._

_His voice, however, was innocent and curious, perhaps tinged with the beginning tendrils of fear, a nervous apprehension. The "mister" was absent from the video at the time, but his voice came from behind the camera, muffled by something._

"_What's your name, kid?" The child's eyes wandered away for a moment, focusing on a different point other than the screen. The man behind the camera didn't move, so what could he be staring at? The boy drew his tongue across his small lips once, eyes returning to the lens._

"_It's Thom-" Strangely enough, the boy halted there, as if the wind had been snatched from his lungs and the words to his own name forgotten. His eyes imperceptibly widened in fear, his body stiffening and physically moving away as if he had been jolted by a sudden shock. Eerily, he continued, as if compelled to do so under great force. He managed to spit out, "Czeslaw Meyer."_

"_Well, that's a…unique name. So, you want to know why you're here. It's no one's fault except for your own, of course. __**I**__ didn't force you to come with me. You could have walked away like a good little boy should have."_

_The video flickered, flashing to a blank screen of black and white static for a moment before emerging on the same scene, this time beholding their unsub. As always, his face was obscured by a black mask as he loomed over the tiny boy._

_Even stranger than the boy's name was the expression that had overtaken his features, which had been frightened in the previous scene. That was not the face of a child, not even the face of a broken child. That was the face of an adult in a child's body, hardened, resolute despite his position._

The agents watched the man as he beat the boy, but a previous victim had already been beaten to death and this unsub seemed to enjoy killing in different ways. It was far from original, but it left them in horrid suspense. The man broke his fragile bones, dashed his head against the grey floors, finally driving a knife across his chest, all within a time span of a few short minutes.

It never ceased to amaze a person how fast another's life could end. In some situations, life was even shorter and more tragic than this. However, there was one thing that these agents had never seen, and that was the restoration of life. It was a matter of magic that only children or the devout believed in anymore, but at one time there had been an entire field devoted to magic and magic in science. In this contemporary world of reason and science, magic belonged only in stories.

Maybe these people gathered together were a part of a story in the corner of a bookstore somewhere, and maybe someone interested in a good fantastical mystery was reading it at that very moment. This was impossible to predict or even imagine under these circumstances, of course. The agents were too focused on the dark liquid blood and the convoluted surface that gleamed in the bright lights.

The blood rippled. It might have been a trick of the light, a faulty camera. It shivered and began to crawl, regrouping to its original host. Flesh knit itself back together, the broken corpse twitching on the ground.

They convinced themselves that they were delirious, watching the video in reverse, until Garcia read the timestamp out loud. Indeed, the blood acted as its own entity, an existence that resided beyond the realm of believable thought. Although it was not possible, somehow it had become possible, and Avaro and Talbot's conversation was suddenly more than a fairytale.

"_That hurt, mister, but I don't think it was enough. No, it's never enough for types like as you, you who revel in the misery of other human beings. I can die a hundred times over in a hundred different ways and it will never satisfy you; that I can assure you." That was not a child's voice. The man screamed louder than the not-child's dying screams, his terror in the unimaginable event that had just occurred._

_The boy turned, although he was a boy only in body now, and addressed someone beyond the camera._

"_I'm sorry; I don't quite remember your name. But you remembered mine, right? And you remember who Maiza is, Maiza Avaro? We've been searching for you."_

_Meanwhile, the man in the screen shrieked in partial fear and partial rage, lifted the boy, and tossed him somewhere out of the lens' vision. Another voice, this one deep and even, bold and unassuming at the same time, finally emerged on the scene. Yet this was still a type of voice that might have belonged to a nondescript man, a voice no one would remember._

"_You're an idiot. I only worked with you because you are an idiot, but I didn't think you were that stupid. You saw it once and that's enough, isn't it? The kid won't die no matter what you do to him. In fact, when he gets free, he may even decide to take revenge equivalent to what you have dealt him. That would be quite a show. But I'll have to ask you to stop now."_

The video ended.

_**V. Firo receives a call that has been vastly misinterpreted.**_

"_You have a child now!_" This first voice was that of Isaac Dian, the man who was unfortunately in charge of the household until Firo returned from work. He had no idea why the man was in charge of his house in particular, instead of his neighbor's or one of their other acquaintance's homes when the man lived with his lover in an apartment in Manhattan. All he knew was that they had assumed guard duty even after their "babysitting" services were no longer needed.

"Excuse me, I have _what?_" This utterly confused poor Firo, who had claimed to be unintelligent and slow on quite a few occasions. While he muttered into the phone receiver, he shifted to the front of the bookstore and flipped the _open_ sign to a _closed _sign. Whenever these two called, it usually meant a distraction that might last ten minutes to a half hour. He really couldn't afford to have the placed ransacked by hoodlums under his watch.

Not that the crimes nowadays were anything like before. They were rather tame now, like a domesticated cat, still wild enough to cause the occasional spurts of trouble before calming again.

"_Why didn't you and Ennis tell us?_" cried Isaac's voice.

"_Yes, why didn't you tell us?_" his lover, Miria echoed. They never changed. Firo sighed and leaned against a sturdy bookcase, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. Might as well let them expend all of that extra energy while he wondered just what they were talking about. He and Ennis…well, it had taken them years just to marry.

"Alright, I'm pretty sure I didn't have a kid and not notice it, so slow down and please tell me what happened from the beginning." Although, Firo realized after he finished speaking, "the beginning" was also a horrible place to start. That could begin anywhere and then he would have spent his entire afternoon listening to two pigeons rambling over the phone. He hastily amended himself, "Who told you that we had a kid?"

"_The FBI called! We thought they were going to get us for all those robberies and deaths we caused! But then I remembered this is your house and thought they were going to arrest you! But it turns out that Mr. Maiza is over there and they were saying that he lost your child!_"

Of course these two would consider the possibility of the FBI catching them for crimes committed in the 1930s, even when answering the phone in someone else's house. Firo shook his head silently and considered the relevant information.

A child plus Maiza, one that the FBI thought belonged to Ennis and he could only mean Czes. Maybe the FBI had their facts wrong or Maiza had simply used a different cover story, but no matter. How could Maiza lose Czes? To begin with, Maiza was the most responsible person (regardless of longevity) that Firo had ever met, and he had taken a liking to the (younger looking) immortal. He would never "lose" him somewhere and resort to the FBI to help. They did try to prevent the higher authorities from noticing them on a normal day.

Czes would never get lost in the first place. Even when he had been guaranteed a room and a bed of his own in their house in Manhattan, he had a tendency to wander. It wasn't as if they could control where the boy went, because he wasn't a boy and he was a few centuries older than them. He always came back. What was more, he was much more sensitive to their worries than before. He usually dropped a note before leaving at least.

It had taken Firo quite some time to process this, given the limited information Isaac had told him. It made more sense now, so he was able to explain to the couple that he didn't have a child with Ennis and that it was really Czes the FBI had been talking about, which erupted into another spiel. They were fond of the little immortal and went hysterical, forgetting that they were much more incompetent than he was.

In the end, Firo managed to contact the FBI and Ennis by the end of the day, somehow. Of course, it was impossible for him to abandon his post at the bookstore and as the _conta è oro_, but he trusted Maiza and they did need to maintain some semblance of normalcy. How much of that was intact after the FBI called his house, he didn't know and wasn't sure he wanted to know.

* * *

• This is technically a Criminal Minds/Baccano! crossover, but I wanted it to get some exposure in this section before moving it. For Criminal Minds readers: Baccano! is a series of light novels and an anime/manga by Ryogo Narita. It tells the story of a large cast of characters in Prohibition-era America with seemingly unconnected stories that eventually overlap and intertwine as the tale jumps from past to present to the further past to the future. (There are a few timelines: 1711, 1930, 1931, 1932, 2002, etc...)

• This was an extremely experimental writing style for me. I usually am not strong in dialogue or this confusing timeline of events. Hopefully it wasn't too confusing. It should clear up if you stick it through and read the rest. (as with Baccano! the story makes sense as you go) You probably don't need to know much about the Baccano characters, except that some of them are immortal, meaning they live forever. :) Basically.

• _conta è oro _is described as the bookkeeper who manages accounts by the translators of the light novels. The Camorra (from Naples) are real and function somewhat like the Mafia (from Sicily). I kind of skimmed over the gory scene because I really do not want to spend more time than completely necessary thinking of ways to kill a poor little child.


	2. Laws of Physics II

_**The Laws of Physics Are Defied and…**_

…_and the FBI has connections to the Mafia?_

_A child's dead body comes back to life._

_The unsub knocks on the door…but he's dead?_

_And how do hats fit into the equation?_

"Clocks slay time...time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life." (William Faulkner)

_**VI. The dead body couldn't have knocked on the door…right?**_

The station had become a battle zone of immense proportions. The local police were hardly even welcomed to work anymore, their entire workplace transformed into some strange parody of the real FBI headquarters. While the BAU remained on the case, it had been almost completely taken over by Talbot's strange division of selective members. The office wasn't even crowded, but the tension in the air between the two parties remained at an all-time high.

After all, Talbot had been commissioned to investigate cases involving these "immortals" back when the FBI had only been a fledgling as the Bureau of Investigation amongst a slew of other government programs. His was a secret unit, but as old as the organization itself, and as Avaro explained sometime between interrogations, nearly as old as the country in which they resided.

Besides, they had no idea how to find a man that had somehow managed to elude the CIA's intelligence system, although he hadn't aged a day and assumed his original name for official documents. In this day and age, it was unheard of not to be registered in the government's systems; it was nearly impossible if anyone wished to travel beyond the forests and Rocky Mountains.

The human, mortal, unsub was a different story, perhaps the only reason why they were still in town at all. Talbot never made the impression that he wanted them out of the investigation, occasionally asking their opinions on certain things, but there had been less and less for the BAU to do. More accurately, there had been less and less that they could comprehend or analyze as time drew on. There seemed to be no other victims in that time span, at least. Then again, they couldn't find Avaro's young charge either (though they supposed he was not so young in the first place).

The fourth day of the investigation, a little boy with neatly trimmed hair and pale skin knocked on the door to the police headquarters. Prentiss found him first; he and the body slumped behind him. The dark blood was slowly seeping into the bleached white concrete, a perfect splatter straight from an intelligence test. It was a young man with a nondescript face, as much of it as she could recognize as human anyways, the type of unsub that was the most dangerous and unpredictable.

The little boy stared up at her with wide, innocent eyes. They were completely different from the eyes in the video, the eyes that were adult's eyes, ancient's eyes. His lip trembled and his legs shook unsteadily. It was the image of a poor, traumatized boy, except that he was no boy. Children were not nearly as frightening.

"You – you're Czeslaw Meyer, right?" The little boy nodded curiously in response, but didn't say anything. His facial expression hardly twitched. _It's just weird,_ Prentiss thought. If it weren't for that video, she wouldn't have acted any differently around this boy than any other victim. "Your guardian…or friend…Maiza Avaro is here. He's been worried about you."

Not that it was easy to discern the worry in Avaro's features, but he had verbally made it clear that he felt concern for his ward's wellbeing, even if he was immortal. The connotation of his voice suggested that it was _because_ he was immortal that he was concerned. And after that video, Prentiss wasn't sure she could blame him.

"Maiza's been looking for me?" the little boy asked in genuine curiosity. Something in his expression had changed when Prentiss mentioned Avaro, and she clearly saw the gears churning in his head as she spoke. As a result, his voice was now even more unsettling, not quite childish, but not quite the tone of an adult either. He glanced back at the body, the blood now a thin layer of dark paint, before he smiled up at her. It was a child's smile again. "I'm glad."

"What…" The body behind him was still.

"Oh…that other guy – his name's Keegan Wallace – killed him." The boy stated it simply, perhaps as if he were relating a particular story he had read to her. Somewhere along the line he had figured that she knew the truth. "He was rather nice. He made this guy stop beating and killing me because it's useless, so he just brought me here. I told him Maiza and I were looking for him, but he doesn't seem to want to come around just yet."

"And will he?" Prentiss blurted it out before she could think. The boy sounded rather sure of himself, as if there were no question as to whether or not the man would come, but a question of when he would decide to drop by.

The boy nodded. "I'm pretty sure he will. Can I see Maiza now?"

Prentiss was just wondering how they were supposed to write up a report after this.

_**VII. Aaron Hotchner has a strange conversation with one Firo Prochainezo.**_

A follow-up on the previous call was all that Hotchner had set out to accomplish. Nothing complicated by any means, something he had done many times before. The couple's adopted child/younger brother or whatever story they had chosen had shown up at the front door not so long ago. He was alright on the surface, although Avaro had voiced sentimental concern over his mental wellbeing to Hotch in private. Now it was up to Talbot's subsection of the Bureau to finish the job, which left his team to clean up the mess.

"Hello, is Firo Prochainezo there? This is Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner from the FBI. We've contacted you previously about…" Here, Hotch paused to glance at the sheet of paper on the desk that provided a helpful key to pronouncing the little boy's name. Written down, it was perplexing to figure out. "…Czeslaw Meyer, who is your wife's younger brother…?"

There was a shuffling and series of muffled noises on the other line, but Hotch waited patiently. The others who had been charged with calling the couple in New York told him about the whole fiasco and tortuous experience they had with calling the Prochainezo residence, so if he didn't immediately get Firo or his wife, they recommended he remain as calm as possible. Or alternatively, as Maiza Avaro had stated simply, he could just yell at the people on the other end and contact the right person much quicker.

"_Isaac, Miria, get away from the phone or give it to me!_" a muffled voice said from the other end. There were a few squeals and high pitched shouts before someone picked up the phone – a young voice, smoother than the excited people who had first answered. It was the voice of someone in his twenties, but someone who was undoubtedly much older than that. "_Don't listen to anything they said; I'm Firo. Who are you again?_"

Hotch repeated himself, the man giving a pensive hum. "I'm calling in regards to your wife's younger brother. He has been found and is currently safe, here with Mr. Avaro. There doesn't seem to be any lasting damage. I'm not sure if Avaro intends to bring him back to New York or not, but I can let you talk to him if you want."

"_Hm…no, it's fine, I trust Maiza. I'm glad the kid's alright. Thanks for finding him._" Hotchner noticed now that the voice had a distinct accent. If he had the same longevity as the other three "immortals", it was strange that he hadn't gotten rid of that yet. Though he supposed that if the man had lived and stayed in New York for most of these years, he really wouldn't get rid of it.

"About that…although I normally wouldn't be telling you something like this, something did happen during the case that seems…important to mention. This particular serial killer, although he is in custody now, sent videos of him killing his victims to the relatives. Have you heard of it on the news?" Hotch heard the man on the other end suck in a sharp breath that came through as scratchy and hollow.

"_Yeah, I saw that. What about it?_"

"Well, this may sound unpleasant, but he did…injure the boy, so we were worried about the lasting effects this may have had on him…even though there are no lasting injuries"

"_A-ah, I can assure you, mister FBI agent, it's perfectly fine. Czes is a strong kid and when he comes back everyone'll be there to help him whether he wants it or not! You heard those two before…they won't give him a second of the day alone! S-so, is it possible that you can just…overlook what happened on that video? It was probably just a trick of the light or something, right? A-aha…can I talk to Maiza now?_"

Hotch stared at the receiver, perplexed, as the man rambled on nervously. This was easy to distinguish in his voice with an accent much more profound than before. It took him a moment to realize that the man was making an attempt to cover up their immortality.

"You can relax, Mr. Prochainezo. Mr. Avaro and an Agent Talbot told us about your…condition already," Hotch interrupted before the man could spurt anymore anxious chatter. The other voice immediately stopped and released an echoing, relieved sigh.

"_Oh, wait…Victor Talbot's there? Oh, well, it's probably for the best that you don't mention that you called me to him…we didn't leave off on good terms, so I'd appreciate it._" Hotch could have sworn that he heard the man mutter something about jails and Alcatraz, but his voice was away from the receiver by now. When he returned, he was much more composed, sounding less like an exuberant twenty-one year old.

"_Thanks for calling, Agent. I'm sure the others will be happy. Well, I've got to get back to work, so see ya!_"

_**VIII. In which Maiza gives a short history lesson and Reid learns something new.**_

"You can't die," about half of the team stated almost simultaneously, dubious and rightfully so. Maiza Avaro, ever with a smile on his face, nodded. Talbot stood to the side against a desk, arms crossed.

"I can show you, if you really don't believe it," Avaro supplied.

"No, that's…"

"How can that be physically possible? I mean it shouldn't be because human cells can't divide that rapidly and replace limbs…what it would take to do such a thing…" Reid said in that voice of his that indicated an imminent rant. No one stopped him this time, because they were genuinely curious as well. If someone from the FBI even supported it…

"It's due to alchemy, a lost art now, but it was very popular in the eighteenth century. I suppose you can say it started on a passenger ship called the _Advenna Avis_ with a group of morbidly curious alchemists looking far beyond the bounds of mortality…" Avaro told them. "In any case, after the passengers of this ship summoned a demon, they created the elixir of immortality so sought after by sovereigns and scholars. It never spread beyond those passengers on the ship, so it fell into myth."

"And why are you telling us this? Wouldn't it compromise your identities?" Hotchner inquired after the man. They needed to cover all of their bases, even if the information was too grandiose to comprehend. It was suspicious that the man was telling them so much with this nonchalance.

"Not at all, since everyone would simply consider you insane if you decided to tell anyone. Selective parts of the government have been allowed to know about the existence of immortals, but for obvious reasons it's all classified information. After this case, you all will be entered in that very small list of people who know of this and asked not to repeat it." Talbot coolly explained this in an orderly manner.

"So, this little boy you're looking for…" Prentiss began.

"Czes is also one of us. So in that aspect I'm not concerned," said Avaro. "I do need to find him, though, and I would prefer it if he wasn't harmed at all, but that's just idealistic. I do worry, though. Just because we cannot die doesn't mean we're invulnerable to the sensation or psychological aspect of pain."

Perhaps it didn't make much sense and would never make much sense.

"But the files the database has on you…" Morgan protested, having received the report from Garcia only an hour ago.

"One of the rules imposed on immortals is that we cannot establish lasting pseudonyms in society. For official documents, we have to use our real names." Avaro explained it patiently, as if he had all the time in the world to instruct them. And he did.

Talbot followed this up quickly with, "Our department usually regulates those documents. And these guys are _advised_ to lay low in society, but they obviously don't always listen. Some of them have made rather _large_ names for themselves."

"Well, we're successful, that's all I can say."

_**IX. Czeslaw Meyer tells his side of the story…and how to pronounce his name.**_

"Can you tell me what happened before you were kidnapped?" Prentiss was in charge of this interview, asking the little boy informally of what had happened during his time in the criminal's custody. That was after a physician gave him an unnecessary physical, which he had been decidedly unhappy about. They were seated at the conference table with papers stacked in huge piles along the sides for their case. The boy had declined a drink or anything to eat.

The childish lilt to his voice had been fluctuating ever since Avaro told him that the agents knew their secret. He seemed undecided as to whether or not to maintain his innocent façade or reveal his true nature, whatever that was. The agents had only caught snatches of it here and there.

"I was in the bookstore. I asked the man to buy me something to drink. I couldn't fight him, so he just ended up taking me away," the little boy explained simply. He seemed somewhat irked by his weakness, but shrugged the matter off. "We traveled in a van for a while. The drugs didn't work on me for long of course, but I was tied up too. He ended up going to the basement of some house. I guess you know the rest."

"And that other man was…?"

"An immortal," the boy who was definitely past his boyhood years answered. "But I remember him. He's not so bad. He made the guy stop, since it was useless to try and kill me anyways. I told him that Maiza and I were looking for everyone, but he said that he couldn't return at this rate, not for a long time. Maybe he'll turn himself in, maybe not. I asked him why, but he said that I probably already knew."

A look overcame the boy's face, a deeply troubled look that shadowed his small, pale features. There was more to the story. There always would be more to the story, things that would remain invisible to even those who had experienced it. This boy – _a man, technically_ – slid a mask of quiet innocence on his face to disregard whatever details he wasn't willing to share.

"I don't really understand. But that's okay. You don't always have to know everything." He paused. "Are we done here, miss? I want to go back to Maiza."

He was a child again. As easy as that, he was a ten year old child again.

"Oh…one more thing," Prentiss said suddenly. Czeslaw Meyer slid off his seat and turned an attentive ear to her. Feeling infinitely silly, she asked, "How do you pronounce your name?"

"Americans say it 'chez-law'. But you can just call me 'Czes' if it's too hard." He smiled.

Prentiss nodded.

_**X. Welcome to New York, home and haunt of the Mafia!**_

…_Wait, that's the wrong time period…_

The team was there for a case and when it wrapped up, they stepped into a restaurant to relax and unwind before the plane ride home. This was no longer the era of storefronts concealing speakeasies and hidden rooms where mafia schemed, but somehow the ghost of such a place remained. The residue it left behind might have been in part due to its occupants, those who had been born and lived under that time period and reflected the grandeur and depression of those years.

It was the union of two parties from completely different eras, from two completely different spectrums of the law and society. Even anomalies such as these could coexist for a single night.

A large group occupied two large tables against the wall and the team unconsciously flicked their gazes over to the boisterous crowd. Their voices were tinged with an accent particular of the area and they seemed to be having grand fun. A red-haired man stood and made a show of slamming his hands on the table and in the next moment had yanked the chair out from underneath the man sitting next to him. It was almost an invisible act.

In fact, this restaurant had been established quite some time ago. It was old and had that antique feel without the mold and rust. The team ate and released the tension their job always gave them.

They were laughing again after three days of solemnity when a small force tugged at the elbow of Hotch's sleeve. He turned his head automatically, still with a slight smile on his face, instinctively knowing it was a child behind him. All he thought about was that the other patrons were being awfully vulgar with such a small child there at the same time. Well, that was until he saw the child.

"Hello, mister. Welcome to the _Alveare_. Do you like it?"

Hotch blinked. It had been a year since that case, which had been conveniently swept under the radar by that peculiar branch of the FBI, already. The youth's face hadn't changed in the slightest. It was as if he were staring into a well-preserved photograph or a digital picture.

"Hey, Czes, who're you talking to?" called a voice from one table.

"Who is it?" echoed a woman's voice. They sounded vaguely familiar.

"Oh, these people helped me when I got lost last year."

The man and woman were out of their seats in an instant and squeezed into the space between Hotch and Prentiss to address the team. There was a strange glint in their eyes.

"So _you're_ the ones who saved little Czes! We must thank you from the bottom of our hearts!" the man intoned passionately, one hand clenching into a fist as he pulled back and struck some strange pose. The woman beside him also retreated and imitated him, chirping:

"We thank you from the bottom of our hearts!"

"No, really it's okay…it's our job; we're just glad that everything turned out fine. You seem to be doing well," Prentiss addressed the boy.

The others from the large party had turned around and threw half drunken toasts and jokes around. In the back against the wall, Hotch caught the gaze of Maiza Avaro, ever smiling as he waved. Some of the people rose and began to waltz around the room, heedless of the other diners, boisterously chatting about the old times and business as usual.

The red headed man rose from his seat again, slapped someone violently on the back, and sauntered over with a smooth, effortless pace, as if he were still sober. He stopped by the little boy and laid a large hand over his shoulder, echoing the couple's words of thanks.

Czeslaw stiffened instantly, eyes suddenly wide and ten times the age he appeared to be. He roughly shrugged away from the man and darted across the room to where some others were sitting.

The man shrugged. "Kid still doesn't like me much. Well, gotta thank ya for helping him out anyways."

"Really, it's nothing." If anyone was suspicious that the agents weren't suspicious, no one mentioned a word. And the night continued, melding the timeline, plunging the _Alveare _back into an era of crime lords and contraband alcohol, to a time when the Mafioso and the Camorristas ruled the streets, all in an era of modern technology and shining silver skyscrapers.

"Sometimes I think all cities have a shadow self, where the memory of great events and great places lingers after those places themselves are gone." (Cassandra Clare)

* * *

• Well, the story's done. Hope it wasn't too horribly confusing. I'll probably make a continuation off this timeline, so I guess the story isn't technically over.

• Czeslaw's name is Polish, but the American dub pronounces it wrong- the way he says to pronounce it here. The Japanese version was closer to the original, something like "chess-wahf"


End file.
